


Winner Takes It All

by TB_Anon_meme



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: M/M, Ryan's POV, The Rising, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 10:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TB_Anon_meme/pseuds/TB_Anon_meme
Summary: Prompt; Assuming that you all seen the new trailer for The Rising, I want to see Ryan hit on/try to seduce Barnaby only to fail since this rabbit is faithful to his real partner. I really wanna see Ryan trying really hard to make this rabbit swoon. Bonus points for a dumbfounded rejected Ryan seeing Barnaby go into Kotetsu's arms.Author: AnonFrom T&B anon meme on dreamwidth





	Winner Takes It All

**Author's Note:**

> TB Anon Meme note: Good despite Ryan's POV which worked here

You might not guess this at first, but I have a master’s degree in physics. I know, pretty amazing for my age. I need it, because of my power. Gravity is strong, and when I manipulate it, when the force of gravity begins to overpower normal force, I have to be flawless. I need to know how every surface is going to react to every other surface, and exactly where to use my power to save the day. There is no room for error. Precise and perfect, every time.

Actually, physics just turned out to be one of the many things I’m awesome at. I topped the class in every course I took. And of course, I wouldn’t be Ryan Goldsmith if I stopped there. Math was a breeze, too. Geometry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus. I mastered everything. But even if I was good—no, fantastic—at it, math and science didn’t actually interest me beyond what it could do for my powers. Or what it could do for, well, “public relations.”

Crowds of people usually operate according to pseudo-mathematical principles. They form groups, sets, and they either belong to the sets or they don’t. In Sternbild, the people that love Barnaby Brooks Jr create a damn near an infinite set, with every data point, person, contained. From what I hear in Sternbild, my followers are finite: a number of people have heard of me, but not many of them love me the same way they love Barnaby.

The solution? Make Barnaby love me. Then anyone who loves him, following his lead, will love me. Flawless.

It didn’t hurt that Barnaby has a lot worth loving in him. A true hottie, rational mind, fantastically charismatic. He knew the pains of the fame game and will know when we need to back off each other. Putting up with a guy like Wild Tiger—who, let’s face it, is a moron, and that’s putting it kindly—meant Barnaby would be good at accommodating strong personalities, like mine. I knew that Barnaby needed to fall in love first, but I was positive that, once he did, he’d be totally comfortable falling for all that I am, and not what he wished I might be. It helps he loves men, and helps even more that I love hot people.

At least, that’s what I thought.

First meeting was in passing backstage, before the army of makeup artists painted us picture-perfect for the Hero TV closing ceremonies. Usually, I groom myself a little before seeing the stylists, but with chances of running into Barnaby high, and knowing he probably wouldn’t appreciate faux-casual posing, I kept it simple and just ran a hand through my hair.

We had our security escorts nearby, but I saw him walking the opposite direction to me, so I called out: “Hey! Barnaby, right?”

Of course it’s Barnaby. He knew I knew his name. I knew he knew my name. But we had to play that little game for a while, so we’d at least look like normal people.

“Ah—Ryan, I believe,” Barnaby and I approached, and we paused in the hallway for a simple handshake. A handshake! I almost wanted to laugh. Just like Barnaby, playing the straight-laced honors student. Well, I’m an honors student, but school didn’t just teach me textbooks. I learned how to have fun there, too. The line is cliché, but I knew I could show Barnaby a good time, and in due time, he’d give me the chance.

“Man, talk about lousy timing for this,” I say. Barnaby drops the handshake, but I step a little closer. “But I’ve really been looking forward to meeting you, face-to-face.” Charming smile, half-raised eyebrow. Barnaby smiled back. 

And that should have been my first tip-off. One of the traits I most admire in Barnaby Brooks Jr to this day is the ability to smile on command, in a way that looks absolutely indistinguishable from genuine smiles. His technique is flawless. Amateurs think that it’s all in the eyes, trying to make the eyes smile, but you can’t force happy like that. No, Barnaby’s got it down, because rather than a toothy, cheek-splitting grin he keeps it simple and lets his body language do the work of making you think he’s actually relaxed and happy, no matter his true feelings. He’s a total pro.

But Barnaby didn’t even give me that. He was stiff. Almost guarded. Nothing about that smile even tried to convince me he was actually happy. And when someone who spends a lot of time getting paid to smile won’t even share their talent with you, then that’s just insulting. He wasn’t even trying to make me like him.

I already liked him. But I didn’t like the way he did that.

“We’ll meet again at the ceremony. Right now, I have to go,” Barnaby excused himself after a grand total of five seconds of contact.

“Yeah! Totally. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Of course, if I was getting offered the world, I would skip the ceremony without a second thought. But people like it when you say stuff like that. Even if Barnaby snubbed me, that was no reason to snub him back. If this is a contest of professionalism, I’m gonna win. And I’m gonna win him, too.

——

Repeat interactions with Barnaby got a little better. Our second meeting was actually kind of nice. Barnaby’s definitely a reserved guy, so our first real conversation was mostly spent confirming things we already know, like how long we’d been heroes, our most famous battles, and some of our pre-approved personal history. Even though I had so many more interesting things to say about myself, you always gotta reflect the other person’s mood when making a first—or, second—impression. Never over-share. You look like a dick if you over-share.

We started the paperwork side of hero work together, and even if the office was a little too quiet, Barnaby at least talked with me, acting less like a total snob. Either that, or whatever reason he had for not liking me got directed at the forms and files instead of at me. And I’ve had people not like me in the past, but they’re just the losers who can’t handle my style. I liked to think Barnaby was made of tougher stuff than that.

But there was an odd feeling in the office, for both of us. I couldn’t say for sure exactly what was going on with Barnaby, and I’d never bring this up to Schneider… You know what, no. I don’t care about that. I won’t talk about it. It’s not that bad.

So yeah, Barnaby did get nicer, as we started seeing each other more often. Not quite kind, but nicer. We talked about work, we helped each other when we needed, raced each other a little bit to finish tasks, and we usually tied. I like how Barnaby’s a really detail-oriented person. Nothing slips past him. It’s a helpful trait to have, at the desk or in the field. And for the most part, we’re on the same wavelength. Our teamwork is fair, I guess. I’d quantify it at about sixty percent. We’re good at coming up with the same plan, but once or twice, it wasn’t the best plan, and the points slipped through our fingers. I guess that’s one thing the mangy old Tiger had going for him. Thinking outside the box sometimes helps you see the right solution. At least we never ended up with any colossal humiliations, the way Tiger and Barnaby had.

Not to mention, my original goal to win over Barnaby’s fans with romance turned out to be not as necessary as I thought. A lot of people who liked Barnaby ended up liking me, since you can never go wrong with a Golden Boy persona. I picked up stray fans from other heroes, too, since they saw more of what they liked in me than the other heroes. Tiger’s old groupies didn’t even factor into the equation.

After all that, even though I didn’t need to love Barnaby, I still wanted to. He’s actually pretty nice, stiff and formal, but I know I’ve just scratched the surface. He’s got history, he’s got pain. Everyone does. But I know there are things in this world that make him smile, too, real smiles unchecked by cameras or tabloids. I want to see all of it. I want to be the kind of person that he lets into his life rather than holds at a distance. And with a face and body like Barnaby’s, some sex wouldn’t go unappreciated, either.

So of course, I had to ask about Mangy Tiger. The heroes were pretty tight-lipped about him when I first arrived, since we all knew I had basically replaced the guy. I got the feeling that Tiger had made a difference to these people, whether they were actually friends with him or not. First step was to not say a single thing against Tiger during my little interrogations, even though in my professional opinion there was no poorer excuse for a hero. He basically rode Barnaby’s coattails back to relevance before power loss crippled him and knocked him back down. He’s a cautionary tale if anything.

But talking to the other heroes still gave me some insights. Sky High was the one who let it slip, almost by accident.

“To be honest, Mr. Barnaby wasn’t very friendly for a long time,” he said. “It’s thanks to Mr. Wild that we’re all friends with him now.”

“What did Tiger do to make that happen?” Organize a meet-and-greet? Play ice breakers?

Sky High thought for a minute. “This is what I think… Again, just what I think… But I think Mr. Wild was his first friend in a very long time.”

For the love of God, that’s what I’m dealing with? Pretty Boy Pity is part of Barnaby’s public history—believe me, I know very well that not having a secret identity doesn’t mean you’re free from secrets—but he always did a good job at managing it, only bringing it out into the limelight when it was relevant, when the city needed a reason to believe he could defeat Jake Martinez and Ouroboros, or for stuff like that. But that shit was going on off-camera, too? Bringing his drama to work is so out of character for a guy like Barnaby.

But it did explain a lot. It explained the cold distance, the lackluster expressions, the general feeling that Barnaby never bothered to put effort into his interactions with me unless the job demanded it. Barnaby was looking and me and feeling disappointed that I’m not his personal savior. Can he pull himself together and stop projecting on me for just one second? I’m not going to be Tiger for him, his on-the-clock therapist, or whatever it is Tiger did. That’s not gonna be me. I won’t act like an idiot to draw Barnaby out of his shell. For one thing, that’s been done before, and I hate being a copycat.

No, I’m going to take the world by storm. And I’m going to take Barnaby by storm, too. Tiger might be his first friend, but I’m gonna be the one to rock his world, and force him into the present so hard that whatever happened in the past will be just that: the past. None of that’s gonna matter now that I’m here. He won’t have the time or energy to worry about the past when Hurricane Ryan hits him, and hits him hard.

And I’ll use my own tactics. My own strategy. My own angle.

——

Barnaby likes training on his own. He’s got a routine that he’s been doing for what seems like years, always the same number or reps on a variety of machines. It’s not a daily schedule, so some muscle groups get to rest every few days, but he knows precisely what he’s going to do the instant he walks in the gym.

And he never uses the free weights. So offering to be a spotter is out.

The first week in the gym, I noticed the other heroes dancing around Barnaby a bit. They had already thrown their welcome wagon for him or whatever by the time I got there, but at quiet moments, each hero took a moment away from their workout or chat time or water time to approach Barnaby and speak with him very quietly. Any time I tried to get too close, the conversation instantly ended, and the hero walked away, only to return later. But after watching six of those little talks happen, I got the gist of what everyone was asking: “Are you okay?”

Why the hell wouldn’t Barnaby be okay? Unless the lack of Tiger in his life really caused that much concern to the other heroes. Whatever. They can have a sympathetic snugglefest if they want. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to win.

My first strategy was to ditch my shirt in workouts. I showed up one day without my top, me and all my physical perfection, following Barnaby’s workout and doing my best to stay on the machines next to his. We make small talk, and Barnaby definitely notices—I see the way his green eyes flick to me, so sharp and poised, examining, evaluating—but honestly, the bigger reaction comes from unexpected sources.

First off, Fire Emblem was all over me. The grapevine warned me that Fire Emblem had some flirty habits, but it still didn’t encompass the scale of his reaction. I was doing reps on the butterfly when he noticed me, pecs and upper arms rippling, and as he drew closer, he crooned, “Apollon knows how to pick them~! Let me get a good look at you!”

I finished my reps and stood, flexing for his sake and doing my best to direct it toward Barnaby. My partner was still unimpressed, and I didn’t have long to find something that might catch his interest because a hand reached out and grabbed hold of my ass.

“Not bad down here, either,” Fire Emblem decided.

For Christ’s sake! That wasn’t flirty, that was sexual harassment! But from the reaction of the rest of the gym, I had to assume that butt groping was normal for Fire Emblem, so I did my best to stay charming.

“Flawless body, that’s me,” I joked. During the ass-grab, Barnaby took his chance to move on to the next part of his workout, dodging any kind of conversation about my appearance. “Now I gotta keep training—”

“Hang on!” Fire Emblem grabbed my arm and started dragging me in the opposite direction of Barnaby. “I gotta check something!”

I don’t know if you’ll believe what ended up happening. Fire Emblem pulls Rock Bison out of his workout and drags him over, making a swipe at his ass, too. While Bison squealed, Fire Emblem felt around a little and eventually decided, “Hmm, it’s a close one, but Bison still has the finer ass.”

And then I had to go and be an idiot—I don’t like being second-best—and goad them on. “Why is ass alone the only category? What about a full-body contest?” Yeah, so I make mistakes like that, but it’s usually all in my favor. I can’t win if there’s no contest.

Fire Emblem loved that idea, and so he gathered together the rest of the heroes, minus Barnaby, and set up some kind of weird beauty pageant thing, a contest between me and Rock Bison, judged by all the other heroes. No one else really seemed to be getting into it. The only other girls on the squad, Blue Rose and Dragon Kid, didn’t seem to want to be there. Rosie kept hiding her eyes behind her hand and complaining, but Fire Emblem insisted she help him judge, saying, “Put your loyalty on a shelf and enjoy the show!” I wonder if she’s single. Dragon Kid kept judging me and Bison on how strong our bodies looked rather than how handsome. Sky High took that route, too, and Origami Cyclone really didn’t say anything, sort of hanging back and mumbling.

Our call bands rang before anyone could deliver a verdict. No contest. And Barnaby didn’t even see. I had tried to ask Fire Emblem to include Barnaby in his little peanut gallery—though I didn’t call it that—and he just said to “Let Handsome do his own thing.” So my entire workout got derailed for a pointless beauty contest, and Barnaby didn’t even see me strutting my stuff.

But before we split, Rock Bison put his hand on my shoulder and held me back.

“Hey, um, you’ve been doing great as a hero so far, but there’s something I want you to know,” he told me, totally serious and straight-faced.

“What?”

“Walking around shirtless… is sort of my ‘thing.’”

“Your… ‘thing?’”

“Yeah. My thing.”

And we kind of just stared at each other for a minute, before we left to answer the emergency without another word.

I mean, what was I supposed to say?

——

So I have the weirdest co-workers now. The people I worked with before had a few screws loose, too, but these guys… man, they take the cake. How the hell do their marketing teams spin them as superstars when they’re just so off-the-wall weird? At least it keeps me on my toes. Getting complacent around these guys is the last thing I need.

Throughout these never-dull moments, I kept working at winning Barnaby over, too. The problem was he just never relaxed around me. I kept coming up with strategies to get close to him and they kept failing. Humor didn’t work. I tried to tell a jokes in a certain direction, feeling out what usually made him laugh, but absolutely nothing landed right. I know everyone has a sense of humor, I just had to find Barnaby’s, but it was taking too long. I know tons of ways to make people laugh, but I won’t be a jokester. The rest of the heroes are jokes enough already.

Then I asked questions. Questions about the job, questions about him, his interests, his hobbies, likes and dislikes. I already knew it all—because I had done my homework months before I got here—but I wanted to hear those answers out of his mouth. He’s got a great voice, smooth and clear, and even neutral talk sounds sexy, unless he’s deliberately being cold. Man, that voice can give a man chills. But not me. Nothing gives me chills. But not even asking questions got me any closer to the real Barnaby.

I know he probably thinks I’m a total pain in his ass, but I can’t give up. I picked another strategy, asking if he’d show me around Sternbild. I bought a tourist guide and selected pages at random, insisting that Barnaby and I go together, since he knew Sternbild better than I. He dodged around a lot, insisting he had plans, or wanted to go home and rest, or some other weak excuse, but I kept catching him out. He’d give me a time when his plans started, and I’d find every single window possible to spend maybe fifteen minutes: on our own, out of the office, off the job. And I gotta say, we are awkward as hell when we go out. I literally feel Barnaby dragging his heels while I yank on his arms and he absolutely refuses to budge.

On top of all that, he felt so… accustomed to it. Like he’s dealt with people always dragging him places before. It irritated me, the idea that I’m working my ass off just to make him cut me some slack. Like he’s taking pity on me, toying with me. I hate being a toy. I’m worth more than that.

I don’t hate it enough to stop. I’m curious about it, too. For someone so resistant to the idea of hanging out, Barnaby never once told me to cut it out or stop inviting him places. But, there was one moment when Barnaby flat-out refused to go. It didn’t take long before my guide said that the must-see tourist spot was the Fortress Tower. I asked him about it. Barnaby denied me.

“Why not? They say the stars are brighter than anything up there. What are you doing that’s more important than the best view in Sternbild?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Barnaby answered. “I’ve already been to the Fortress Tower.”

“So you’ll know how to show me around. C’mon, I’ll buy you dinner there.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Why not?”

“I won’t go.” He turns to me and fixes me with the coldest stare I’ve ever seen. “Find someone else to take you, or pick somewhere else to go.”

It was easy enough to pick something else from the book, but that flat refusal irritated me, a lot. What, did a boyfriend break his heart at that tower? It’s just Barnaby living in the past again, when there’s a glittering present and bright future waiting for him right here. I keep getting the feeling that Barnaby is usually, mentally, somewhere else, and that’s fine if he’s got other things on his mind. But for the time I’m there with him, I want his focus to be completely and totally on me. That’s the way it should be. When we’re together, my focus is completely on him, and even though I’m asking for much more than a wishy-washy meeting in the middle, it’s only fair to reciprocate. Whatever drama that’s waiting for Barnaby may still be there after we’re through, but being with me should help give him some perspective on how much those problems matter. They don’t actually matter at all.

But I have to spend a lot of time acting like parks matter. Like statues matter. Like really tall buildings matter. Like kooky, hole-in-the-wall restaurants matter. When the only things that really matter here are me and Barnaby. At this point, I’m almost an expert in all the data of Barnaby Brooks Jr, the likes and dislikes and preferences and habits. But all of it’s just bricks in the wall he’s built around me. Until he runs out of answers to my questions, that wall will stand.

The longer I tried, the more I realized that Barnaby is well-equipped to meet me word-for-word and keep me out. He has hundreds of interviews under his belt, and he’s a master at giving half-answers, non-answers, everything. I know I’d do just as well, or better, if in his position, but I’m not a master interviewer yet. I can’t edge around his dodges.

My next step was something a little more physical. I asked him if we could spar.

Barnaby’s expressions are always so subtle, but he blinked and raised his eyebrows. Surprised and confused.

“There’s no stronger fighter in all of Sternbild than you,” I told him, laying on just enough flattery without going over the top. “You’ll keep me sharp. Besides, there’s always something to learn from a sparring partner.”

I saw him wrestling with the offer. “I’ve never really sparred,” he admitted.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like pretend fighting or simulations. It’s not my thing.”

I never expected that. I’m great with simulations; they’re just like a contest, something that I can win. If the simulation beats me, I can try again and get it right the next time, and by the time I’m the best at the simulation, doing the same thing in the field would be a snap. I always thought of people who ditched simulations as lazy divas, like actors who say they can’t get into character until they’ve got their costume on, two days before opening night. It takes weeks to master a new skill—you can’t expect to gain it instantly in the field, or before someone gets hurt. Injuries are a PR nightmare, so you need to practice.

But, I couldn’t go judging Barnaby for his anti-sim attitude. I just needed him to say yes. “It’s a great way to work out stress, too,” I tempted him. “Hasn’t there ever been a time when you wished you could just kick the crap out of someone?”

He glanced at me for half a second, not long enough to stare but long enough to be noticed. Thanks, Barnaby. 

“Okay,” he said at last. “I think the simulation room is free today.”

And that was all I needed. I just needed him to agree.

Hate isn’t the opposite of love—indifference is. Even when people hate, they still care, because they’re pouring attention and energy into another person. It just happens to be a person they don’t like. I can handle it if Barnaby doesn’t actually like me yet. But the first step is making sure he’s not indifferent. He needs to know I am different, in every possible way. I’m unlike anyone he’s ever met before, and if that can’t get some kind of reaction out of Barnaby, then nothing can.

If he reacts to me, I have a chance.

——

Sparring was the best idea I ever had, given my goal. I finally had something that played to my strengths. For all Barnaby complained about hating simulations, I think he got pretty into it. Definitely not at first—I had to throw the first punches, leave a few openings to encourage him—but I think it helped him work out a lot of his irrational frustrations. Not to mention, in a fighting scenario, Barnaby has no choice but to focus on me. Drama, history, and stress gets locked up in a box for later, once we’re done flinging punches and kicks.

We went on like that for a little while. Practice battles slide effortlessly into our routine. We spend about half an hour on it daily, with a few days where we take longer, anywhere from a full hour to two. After a week or so, I made my first move—I brought him a water bottle. No big deal, easy to overlook, but Barnaby took it and, slightly breathless, said “Thanks.” No resistance, no drama, just a guy accepting a well-timed favor from his partner.

Then I raised the stakes a little bit; I dated a masseuse once, and as a quick study, I picked up a lot of her trade secrets before we broke up. So far, Barnaby and I had shared a lot of physical contact, but it was all faux violence. I needed faux affection, as a gateway to real affection.

“Your shoulders seem tense,” I told him one day. “I think it’s throwing off your balance a little.”

“I don’t feel tense,” Barnaby reported.

“Really? I might be imagining things,” I played along. “But I know a really good trick for loosening up. Even if you’re not tense, it could only help, right?”

“Let’s try another round first,” he dodged the prospect, but after another round beating each other closer and closer to exhaustion, he finally relented. I didn’t ask for him to ditch his shirt—though that will be on the table for a later date—and worked my magic. Barnaby’s self-assessment of tension was spot on, but I wasn’t about to let him go once he finally let me put my hands on him in a nice way. I play it off best I can, “Huh, looks like it wasn’t your shoulders after all… but I saw something…”

The shoulder rub turned into a full-on back rub, across the trapezius, deltoids, and latissimus dorsi, targeting muscle groups and knots of tension. Barnaby had a few knots, but they were the deep-seated twists that come from being in a highly physical career, unlike stress knots or the crinkles of a neglected body. Mostly I just smoothed out the casual tension of a day’s work.

After about fifteen minutes, I let him go. The looseness in his limbs remained, but Barnaby wouldn’t look me in the eye. To be expected. We just crossed a major threshold there, and it wouldn’t be the last one.

“Shall we start up again?” he suggested calmly.

“Okay, sur—” Before the syllable even left my mouth, Barnaby dropped low and swung at my legs with his. Almost knocked me down. Looks like the massage did his speed some good.

Overall, sparring did the both of us a lot of good. Even though it was a ruse, I did learn some new moves through fights with Barnaby, and he picked up a few of my signature tricks, too. We’d go at each other, and on the days where the sparring ran long, we’d both end up out of breath, sitting side-by-side against one of the walls. And we didn’t need to say anything. Or do anything. We could just sit—and I felt closer to Barnaby than I had ever been before.

He did speak once. He asked me, “Why are you a hero?”

I’d gotten that question before, and for the sake of sponsors, my usual answer was “for the good of the City,” which could be any city, really. But I knew Barnaby was looking for something else. Not to mention that other answer isn’t quite true. I distilled my true answer into something he’d like to hear

“I think there’s something… only I can do,” I answered, still a little breathless. “I’m not going to sit by… when I could be doing something… for the world.”

Barnaby nodded. I couldn’t tell if he liked or disliked my answer, but I knew he understood it. That was new—feeling understood. I hadn’t actually said my real reason, but it felt like Barnaby knew it anyway. I like being superlative. Not necessarily showered in prizes or glory or fame. The word basically sums it up: superlative. The ideal against everything else will be measured. Like in classical alchemy—gold was the element that all the other elements aspired to be, and could be refined into. Being the best—a winner, a champion, a king—falls short against being the Gold Standard.

“Same question,” I said after a minute. “Why?”

He sighed, or hiccuped, or both. I’m fairly sure it was meant to be a laugh.

“I want to help people,” he said. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Absolutely,” I told him. And it’s kind of the truth. For some people, it’s absolutely enough. But not for me.

There was a hopeful feeling when I went to work after that. I think Barnaby was starting to see me as less of a chore, or threat, or whatever was running through his brain from the day we met. He still wasn’t really sharing anything about himself, but I could handle that, so long as his walls started to crumble. Then I could find the perfect moment to knock them down.

We knock each other down plenty in sparring. And that moment after a hard workout when we’re just sitting together… It feels warmer than any afterglow. I just hear him breathe, and sometimes I think I can hear his heart beating beneath his skin, and through the damp sweat and exhaustion, he’s still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. The beautiful people I keep seeing day in and day out all start to look the same, because they’re Not Barnaby. He’s become a Gold Standard, the ideal everything else aspired to be, brilliant and strong with hidden kindness I’m just beginning to glimpse.

It… scared me a little, when I realized something had changed. I wasn’t just in love with Barnaby anymore. I was falling in love with Barnaby. It’s not the love I’m against—I’ve never had anything against love—it’s the falling. To fall, you need gravity, and I have no power over the gravity that makes people fall in love.

Yet, that gravity pulled me all the same, and I kept falling. And there was only one thing I could do about it: keep trying. Regardless of whether I felt a stable-love or a falling-love, my goal remained unchanged. Barnaby Brooks Jr needed to fall in love with me.

A/N: Merry 'The Christmas.' :3

——

I thought sparring was the ticket. It covered the whole spectrum. It let Barnaby be angry, vulnerable, strong, and loose all at the same time, and all the while I thought he couldn’t tell what I actually wanted. When we started play-fighting, everything else stopped requiring so much effort. I didn’t have to drag him, kicking, to go out with me—we’d go out less, but he’d go more willingly. Casual things like coffee and lunch. I’d flirt, usually just calling him out for being the gorgeous man that he knows he is. Something about his eyes, face, body, I don’t even have to embellish. Barnaby is just that beautiful. Barnaby wouldn’t meet my eye, but he’d look away and he’d grin, this sly little smirk, and then he’d say some witty line, “Wait, are we on camera? Quick, look friendly.”

And we were friendly. I thought he was flirting back. But there were so many signs—signs I should have seen. I was only interested in the signs I wanted to see.

We had one day where everything was going right. We had a pretty fun interview in the morning, the paperwork was light—Schneider’s told me damage fines have plummeted—and we had a good workout, both independently and together. By now, we know each other’s moves so well that sparring is more like dancing. There’s not much we can do to surprise each other anymore, though that’s just an excuse to get inventive.

Barnaby isn’t angry with me anymore. Even if he still is, it’s not a feeling he dwells on. I don’t feel resentment or tension, and even as we exchanged blows, I felt so… wanted. Like he wanted me to be there. Like he’d rather be with me than anyone else. Me. And I felt more in love with him than ever.

That day, our sparring went longer than usual, and the both of us were panting and breathless as we changed back to civilian clothes. Barnaby looked so content, too, as happy as a man can look while tugging on shoes and pulling up zippers. So I thought I’d be direct for once—there’s no way to say this kind of stuff without sounding at least a little bit stupid, but with such a good atmosphere between us, if I took my chance now, at least I wouldn’t sound afraid.

“Hey, Barnaby,” I ventured.

“What is it?” Formal diction with a familiar tone. A good mood for Barnaby Brooks Jr.

“There’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” I told him. I had my clothes, boots, and bangles on, so I shut my locker and turned to him. Barnaby was sitting on a bench and sliding on his shoes, with his jacket folded beside him. His tight, red-black shirt looked so good on him. “About being a hero, and being your partner, and the work we do together.”

“What have you been thinking?” He wasn’t meeting my eye again, just staring at his shoes as he perfectly aligned his foot with the hole. And those pants, damn, his legs stretched forever in those pants. I took a seat beside him, close. Very close. I felt this swelling in my chest, confidence and power, and this certainty that everything was about to go my way, like destiny. Things always go my way. Even if there’s a hiccup or two along the way, I get what I want or better.

“I think you know,” I stalled a little bit. “But I’m willing to explain if you don’t.”

“I don’t think I know what you mean,” Barnaby finished with his shoes and looked my way. I saw him—the curve of his jaw, the shape of his eyes, the curl of his bangs—and before he could play coy and look away again, I leaned forward and I kissed him. Nothing scandalous, just my lips against his, so it was less of a kiss and more of a message: “I find you attractive. I want to be closer to you. There’s more where that came from.”

Barnaby pulled away fast, and his hand flew even faster. Then his hand struck my cheek and I wasn’t staring at Barnaby’s face anymore. I gingerly touched the stinging skin and marveled at the speed of the strike—at least as fast as his legs, maybe faster, and damn it hurt but I should be fine with a forearm block—and then the significance settled in. Barnaby slapped me. Barnaby got my message loud and clear and then responded in kind. He rejected me. Rejected! Me!

I blinked the smarting pain from my eyes and looked around. In two seconds flat, Barnaby disappeared from sight, and the metal clang of the room door told me he had escaped, his jacket abandoned on the bench.

I could nurse my wounds later. Right then, I needed to catch Barnaby before he got away. The sense of destiny crumbled as I realized that making my move might have just destroyed everything—that tenuous friendship, the all-or-nothing field work, my entire job. This one moment could decide the rest of my future with Barnaby, and mean the difference between a gentle rejection and a fight that tore any hope of an ‘us’ to shreds.

I wasn’t about to let him tear ‘us’ to shreds before ‘us’ even happened.

I ran after him, predicting his most likely path. He had most of his clothes on, so he could go just about anywhere he wanted. He was panicked. He was upset. He wouldn’t go to the office, he didn’t leave any necessary personal items there, and returning to the gym would mean meeting the heroes and having to explain his mood, which is not something Barnaby enjoyed. He was running—running away. To the ground floor, then. Barnaby wasn’t waiting at the elevator bank, so he was either already in one or had taken the stairs. I chose the stairs, leaping entire flights on my way down. I remember my heart thudding in my chest, thinking about how quickly it had all gone wrong. I gambled, and I lost. I thought over every time Barnaby resisted me, redirected me, cataloging and categorizing signals I had missed in my thoughtless daze, and with hindsight I realized I had done the absolute worst thing possible.

All the while, I couldn’t stop thinking, I’m better than this. I don’t make mistakes like this. This isn’t me. The way Barnaby made me into someone I’m not… Well, he could only do that because I let him. I searched so hard for the flaws in Barnaby’s armor that he found the chinks in mine, and somethingabout him dug in, dug hard. There’s a new variable in my own self that I haven’t properly accounted for. I’ve changed and I didn’t even notice. Rookie mistake.

The gym is nearer the bottom of the tower than the top, so I made it to the ground floor soon enough. The vaulting Apollon lobby stretched the entire area of a city block, stuffed with people walking to and from offices and a few people waiting. I scanned the crowd for blonde hair and a red shirt. I wished I had my suit. Or a visor that did the same thing. Seriously, why are the heroes on such a tight leash when it comes to using our gear off the show? Couldn’t that engineer develop something to help?

It turned out I didn’t need the engineer. I caught sight of Barnaby beyond the security gates, walking as if he could punch holes in the ground with his feet. So I started running too, through the baby gates and into the main atrium. I wanted to shout his name, but if I drew the crowd’s attention to his presence, we wouldn’t get the chance to talk. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say to him yet. It all boiled down to a contest of speed—which I would win, because Barnaby didn’t know I was pursuing him.

But then Barnaby picked up the pace. He had spotted something, someone, and started running properly. And Barnaby is damn fast, which is perfect because I don’t have to wait for him to catch up to me in the field, but right at that moment, it was the worst. There were too many people moving in every direction, and I only got within fifty feet before Barnaby reached his ‘target.’ It was a someone: a man with brown hair and a goatee. Barnaby flung his arms around this man’s neck, buried his face in his shoulder, and clung to him like a castaway to driftwood. The man’s eyes went wide and his eyebrows sprang up under his bangs as his hands settled on Barnaby’s back.

The man saw me. With Barnaby hugging so tight, Wild Tiger had no choice but to survey the scene behind his old partner’s back. He put two and two together pretty easily: Barnaby, distraught and running to his arms, with me behind him, looking like—I don’t even know what I looked like, probably not good. He knew something went wrong, and if he could look any more shocked, he would have. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, to fix this. I could have called to Barnaby, or even called to Tiger, since I hadn’t met the guy face-to-face so I could fake the need for an introduction. That would at least force everyone—or Barnaby and me—to be civil. But I didn’t want to talk to Tiger, ever if I could avoid it. I wanted Barnaby alone.

And then… things got worse. Barnaby lifted his face from the crook of Tiger’s neck and turned toward him. I’ve never seen Barnaby look so fluid, so natural, following muscle memory. With just a twist of his head, his lips met Tiger’s. And unlike when I kissed Barnaby, Tiger didn’t pull away. This wasn’t a shock to him. He accepted it; expected it.

They couldn’t have spelled it out for me any clearer if they tried. I didn’t stick around to watch. I turned and ran back the way I came, vaulting the security gate and still running until I was back in the stairwell, just behind the door.

Barnaby was in love. He was probably in love before we even met. He had fallen for the wonderful Wild Tiger. And as much as I hated Barnaby for hiding this from me, when he could have just waved the metaphorical ring finger and stopped me before I made an idiot of myself, I couldn’t stop feeling like… like…

Okay. I’ll say it. I’m fucking pissed. I’m pissed that I’m supposed to fill the hole Mangy Tiger left, like a replacement gear from a mail-order catalogue. I’m pissed that I got burdened with so many of his hand-me-downs, his motorcycle, his desk, his armor station. It’s not the oldness I’m against, it’s the way I can’t form my own identity. Schneider keeps shoving me into the box they used to keep that washed-up clown.

I. Am. Not. Tiger. No one believed for a second that we’re the same person. We’ve got different fighting styles, different powers, different appeal—whatever Tiger’s fans saw in him, all seven of them, they won’t ever see it in me—so why did Apollon push so hard to make me the replacement for their old-fashioned veteran? I’m too different from Tiger, and too different from Barnaby. I’m stronger than both of them. I could destroy them if I wanted to, even two-on-one. How far is Hundred Power going to get them when I increase the weight of their armor two-hundred fold? This is a waste of my talents, working for Apollon. They’re treating me like a quantified unit, like they already know the limits of my abilities. Tiger, Ryan, what’s the difference to the stockholders? There’s a big difference! There’s more difference between us than night and day! Tiger may be replaceable, but I am no one’s replacement!

…And what am I supposed to do about Barnaby? He loves his partner. The two of them are still together, even though the company broke them up. Even if I break them apart for good, that won’t help. My Gold Standard of a man will be another of Tiger’s hand-me-downs. Everything I love about him just rusts with the knowledge that Tiger loved him first, and Barnaby loved him back. Even if I can break them apart… it won’t be the same.

There’s this cute little quote that circulates around about the impracticality of breakable hearts; well, hearts only get broken if you allow other people to break them. Letting someone else hold your heart is the stupidest thing you can do, but I tricked myself into thinking this might be different. That I could win. But that’s just it, I lost before I even arrived, and all that’s left is resentment, pain, and proof that my heart is breakable.

Thanks. Thanks for that, Barnaby Brooks Jr.

I didn’t cry after I found out. I felt like it, but I didn’t. I left the stairs, called an elevator, and returned to the gym. Barnaby’s jacket still lay on the wooden bench, right where he had left it. I wondered if he’d come back upstairs to get it, but he never did. I spent a long time sitting next to it—looking, not touching—and wondering what I should do with it. I felt like I had a split personality: half of me screamed to leave the jacket, throw it in the trash, fling it off the roof, burn it, because that’s what Barnaby deserved. I could take revenge on his clothes as a symbol for how much he hurt me. But the other half of me knew Barnaby never wanted to hurt me like this. If anything, he tried his hardest to do the opposite. He wanted a distant, professional relationship, and when I kept badgering him for more, he made concessions. He let us be friends, because… I don’t know. If he had been dating Tiger all this time, I can’t think of a single reason why he would give an inch to me, the guy they hired when they fired his boyfriend. The guy who then started hitting on him and harassing him, dammit, when did I become so despicable? Barnaby was totally in the right to slap me. But I still wanted to slap him back.

I eventually chose the high road. I picked up his jacket, smoothed it over my arm, and brought it to our desks. I draped it over his chair, with the back fitting into the shoulders and the arms hanging empty. And looking at his chair and his desk, and my chair and my desk that used to be someone else’s chair and desk, in an office filled with the imprints of so many memories I’m never going to be a part of… I felt something. A little bit like nostalgia, except for a chunk of time that I would never be able to touch. Someone else’s precious memories. I wondered if I could be satisfied with being precious to Barnaby. Not necessarily his lover, or even his friend or partner, but someone he would shed tears for if he knew we would never see each other again.

Right now, Barnaby would probably smile at the idea of never seeing me again.

But what should I do, when we see each other tomorrow? Accuse him of hiding his relationship with Tiger? Pretend I didn’t ruin everything? Ask questions, and get the answers I don’t know if I want? Start a pro-con list between Tiger and myself and wait for overwhelming evidence that I am the better man to accrue? That doesn’t sound like something the better man would do.

I went home that night. I ate something, but I forget what. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, my head too heavy to lift.

They aren’t doing this to hurt me. I’ve been telling myself that ever since I saw them together, but it never feels true. Barnaby didn’t choose to kiss Tiger where I could see them. He didn’t know I was there. Tiger accepted, even though he knew I was watching, but that was what Barnaby needed from him right then. He needed comfort, and Tiger read that like a book. I wondered what the two of them were doing right at that moment. Judging from the timing of Tiger’s appearance in the lobby, he had to be meeting Barnaby after work. Had they made plans? A date? Were they discussing me at that moment? Would they examine me, judge me, arrive at a verdict for their behavior toward me in the future? I made myself a threat to them, ‘their love,’ whatever you want to call it.

The only thing that helped me sleep was the thought that this wasn’t over. Barnaby and I are still employed as partners. I’m going to keep seeing him. The game is still on, but the stakes have changed. I don’t even know what we’re going to fight for, and so far this contest has given me nothing but pain, but I am going to come out on top or die trying.

Your move, Tiger. Your move, Barnaby.


End file.
